


The Meteorite is the Source of the Light

by Byacolate



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Agender Character, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Lazy Mornings, Love Letters, Love Notes, Other, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 15:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5211914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coffee-shamed in his own home, in a haiku bracketed by smiley faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meteorite is the Source of the Light

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon who wanted to see Rhys/Zer0 and their morning routine. I'm afraid this doesn't fit the prompt to a T, which is just typical, really.
> 
> Now with some [super charming art by robospock](http://robospock.tumblr.com/post/134465111418/coffee-shamed-in-his-own-home-in-a-haiku/)!!

_Back soon_ , reads the note on the pillow next to Rhys‘ head. And under, in smaller letters: _(Not a job.)_. Hastily sandwiched in the middle, a tall _0_.

 

Rhys blinks slowly before he rolls over onto Zer0‘s side of the bed, smushing the note with his face.

 

It‘s cold. Zer0‘s been gone for a while, then.

 

Rhys mumbles something that‘s incoherent even to himself before he drags himself up and out of bed.

 

The scent of fresh coffee fills every corner of the tiny apartment, and Rhys stumbles to the pot, still dripping. “God, I love you so much,” he sighs when he sees it nearly full to the brim - way too much for one man alone, but Rhys is nothing if not determined. He leans an empty shoulder against the fridge as he fills a mug - black, no cream, no sugar. It's habit he‘d picked up swimming with the sharks on Helios, too deeply ingrained to change now, despite Sasha and Vaughn‘s frequent judging faces.

 

Zer0 always got him the best imports, anyway. Rhys likes to appreciate them in their dark, dirty purity.

 

This early, he‘s still a little dazed and disoriented, so it‘s a few moments before he notices a little slip of paper tucked halfway under the coffee machine.

 

_You take it bitter / Your friends may deem you tasteless / And they‘re right. It‘s gross._

 

Rhys groans against the rim of his mug. Coffee-shamed in his own home, in a haiku bracketed by smiley faces.

 

It takes a full cup of coffee to wake Rhys enough to drive him back to the bedroom to reattach his arm.

 

Freshly charged from the docking port, he sets about securing it to his shoulder.

 

It‘s a mindless process after so many years of practice, one that requires very little of his focus or attention at all. This is the factor he chooses to blame for nearly missing the sticky note on the inside of his toolkit lid until he goes to close it.

 

_Hands never idle / You know well how to use them / Charmed. Smitten. Impressed._

 

“Oh my god.” Rhys spends way too long smiling goofily at the note before he slaps it onto his robotic forearm. And then he spends another unnecessary moment tracing over the spindly scrawled words with his organic fingertips. “Oh my _god_ ,” he says again, giving his cheek a good hard pinch before he shuffles over to the closet.

 

He‘s going to meet Vaughn in the reconstructed Hub of Heroism today, so he can‘t stick to his ratty, comfy house clothes. He shucks himself out of his pajamas mournfully, and takes the time to fold them before he puts them on the top shelf.

 

“Miss you already,” he says, patting them fondly. Rhys looks completely and entirely normal clad in nothing but his underpants and argyle socks, baby-talking to his pajamas - of this he is convinced.

 

He slips into a pair of slacks and a soft grey undershirt before he stuffs himself into a snug black jacket. Vaughn had told him once, years ago, that he looked good in black. Zer0 had watched him from a distance then, head cocked to the side as if in contemplation, before a little thumbs up had flashed in red across their helmet.

 

Rhys is nothing if not a sucker for positive reinforcement.

 

It isn‘t until he‘s staring in the bathroom mirror that he notices something tucked into the lapel of his jacket. He deliberately starts to brush his teeth before he pulls out the note, grinning around his toothbrush.

 

_It‘s cold out today / Several reports of bandits / Wear a scarf and gun_

 

“Seriously?” he mutters through a mouthful of minty spit, and only drools a little. His face feels hot, and his heart still palpitates at the weirdest things after all this time. He takes a pic of the note and fires it off to his friends.

 

 _Couldn‘t 0 just text you this information_? Fiona says almost instantly.

 

 _sound advice from a dude in spandex_ , says Sasha, to which Rhys responds with a frowny face.

 

Yvette says, _Nerds of a feather flock together,_ which is only too true to combat.

 

Vaughn‘s reply is a long series of shocked and delighted emojis, with a few hearts, stars, and farm animals interspersed. There‘s a reason he‘s Rhys‘ best friend, and it‘s not his set of killer abs.

 

Well. For the most part.

 

Rhys makes himself another cup of coffee to kill time, tinkering with some old shields Zer0 brought home from their last job. Refurbishing gear for Zer0 is a hobby, not an obligation; Zer0 brings them home as more of a gift than an expectation. The number of nights he gets texts that tell him his shields keep Zer0 standing after battles that would otherwise see them fall are more than incentive enough to tinker.

 

By his third cup of the day, Vaughn is blowing him up to come down early, accompanied by several emojis of excited faces and coffee cups, likely impatient and bored on his own. Rhys sends an emoji of a lollipop and a dancing woman back to interpret as he likes.

 

As he slips into his shoes, he both hears and feels a muffled _crunch_ of paper. Breathless laughter leaves his chest when he kicks his left shoe off again to dig out the paper crumpled near the toe.

 

_May your feet lead you / On adventures to your tastes / Ever on and on_

 

He can‘t help himself anymore, stuffing his foot back into the shoe as he patches through to Zer0‘s ECHO.

 

“Yvette called you a nerd,” he says when the call goes through. And he can‘t stop the way his smile must be audible to anyone listening on the other side. “But I still think you‘re really cool. I got all your notes, I think. And I‘m wearing the scarf and the gun. And I love you. I just... wanted you to know that.”

 

There‘s a long silence on the other end that Rhys would mind so much less if it wasn‘t answered by a slowly rising cacophony of voices, interjections both feminine and masculine, that Rhys can only catch parts of.

 

“- your boyfriend?” is one.

 

“Amigo, that‘s the cutest -” is another.

 

“ - so sweet I‘m gonna -” is in there too.

 

The call ends. Rhys doesn‘t let it faze him and locks the apartment up behind himself.

 

His ECHO buzzes halfway to the elevator and Rhys picks up before the first tone has died down.

 

“You escape from your friends?” he asks. The other line is silent now, apart from the dubious note in Zer0‘s voice.

 

“They came to visit.”

 

“You don‘t sound very happy.”

 

“You can‘t see my smile.”

 

Rhys bites his lower lip to keep the grin from splitting his face in two.

 

“You‘re probably going to be awhile after all,” and it‘s only as he says it that he realizes it‘s true. Rhys‘ smile dims a little. Zer0’s stuck around longer than expected, this time. Rhys probably shouldn‘t have gotten complacent. Zer0 only really comes back for him; they prefer wandering and the thrill of the next great challenge to... to domesticity. Even so...

 

“No.”

 

“... No?”

 

“They came for you, not for me.”

 

“Uhh.” Rhys presses the call button for the elevator at the end of the hall. “They know I‘m not a vault hunter, right?”

 

“I believe they want proof that you exist. For a wager.”

 

“You left so early this morning to settle a bet?” Rhys has to ask, trying not to laugh.

 

“I left early this morning for breakfast,” Zer0 corrects. “They stole it. I was... caught off guard.”

 

Rhys‘ eyebrows tic upward as the elevator descends to his floor. “Impressive. For them, I mean. That... wasn‘t sarcasm.”

 

The first few seconds of the elevator ride is quiet, even though he knows Zer0‘s still on the other end. Several texts from Vaugh tell him what he already assumed - the Hub is crawling with vault hunters. Vault hunters who, apparently, have an ongoing pool on whether or not he exists. “So, if I don‘t get the chance to say this when I find you,” he says, “I appreciate the coffee. And the notes. And the breakfast. Or. The effort you made for breakfast, even if it was thwarted. So... thank you.”

 

His ECHO pings with an incoming text from Zer0. Who - he double checks - is still on the line.

 

It‘s a heart.

 

Another ping - three hearts.

 

Another ping - an emoji of a blushing face. Rhys feels his traitorous complexion follow suit.

 

“Ohh my god,” he says, his voice as weak as his knees. “Can you stop turning my legs to jelly, please? It's been too many years. Even I'm starting to worry."

 

There's a noise on the other end that might be a laugh, though as soft as it is, Rhys could be mistaken.

 

"I'll find more breakfast," Zer0 says, and three doughnut emojis ping to his ECHO.

 

Rhys enjoys the silence between them as the elevator reaches the hub as a thought suddenly hits him from the blue.

 

"... The gun you told me to bring isn't for bandits at all, is it."

 

The call ends abruptly, and Rhys snorts with a shake of his head.

 

 _I'm not showing off for a bunch of vault hunters,_ he texts. _That would end badly for so many reasons._

 

 _Protection, not presentation,_ is Zer0's reply, quick as lightning. Rhys' laughter abruptly dies.

 

_I don't know why I expected normalcy to follow me out of the apartment._

 

_What is normalcy? / Is it in the apartment? / It needs to be shot_

 

Rhys' laugh startles a few passersby as he walks from the elevator into the Hub. Immediately, he locates the source of the commotion on the other side of the main hall, and resigns himself to investigate.

 

A normal, average, everyday morning on Pandora. He's survived hundreds of them; what's one more?

 

 _Variety is the spice of life, I guess,_ he texts, wincing at the echoing sound of a crash.

 

Zer0 responds with a series of smiles, so it's probably all going to be okay. Maybe.

 

Hopefully.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Joanna Newsom's "Emily": _the meteorite is the source of the light, and the meteor’s just what we see; and the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee._
> 
> Inquire about fic requests [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).


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